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The 5 Symbols of the Camino de Santiago, Part Four: The Bandage

On By Well Worth BeingLeave a comment

Joseph Campbell said, “Follow your bliss”. Pilgrims follow their bliss/ters.

On no past Camino de Santiago or long-distance local hike have I had to deal with blisters. The only trek I suffered from blisters was in 2001 on the Annapurna Circuit (Nepal) when I walked in leather boots I took out of their box to pack in my backpack … I didn’t walk in them once before boarding the plane to walk for 21 days across and over the Himalaya at 5,400m altitude.

Symbolically, my life in 2001 was plagued with abrasions that caused more pain than pearls and by 2016, my first Camino of 250km with my then 11-year-old son, I had recognised and was acting on my need to nurture my wounds.

Some people diminish their wounds; some deny them; some go into a trauma response and simply obliterate them from memory; some defend their wounds and use their pain as a badge of honour, and some just never quite manage to shine because that would mean giving up on the psychic injuries they have been subjected to.

Adapting to different footwear—I now wear Altra trail running shoes for Camino and will be wearing T-Rockets running sandals on some days too—and conditioning my feet long before the journey, as well as every day before and after walking, is a good analogy for building capability and competency to face challenges … and also to recognise where the stone in my shoe is going to hinder my journey and where the stone in my shoe is the grit that the oyster uses to make the pearl.

It is erroneous to bandage and splint healthy body parts, so there is a call for discernment in how one treats one’s wounds, both from the past and those that present themselves currently. Self-care can reprogram one’s emotional, physical, psychic and mental bodies to engage differently with personal injuries or traumas and shift perspective from being overcome by wounds to using them as a pathway to healing.

As I walk this journey from next week, for Mental Health I will be intentionally working with fellow pilgrims who approach me with specific needs around grief, loss, trauma and dis-ease and I am cognisant of needing to be discerning in how much self nurturing and self supporting I must do in order to be able to support others on their unique walk to wellness.

We are not here to be perfect, we are here to heal. And the first part of any healing process is to recognise the wound as a symbol of healing rather than as an obstacle in its way. It’s important to not get too attached to the strapping and then fail to acknowledge that the wound is no longer there. Struggle can be used as a tool to justify one’s actions or one’s suffering and to eliminate the need to step up and show up. A wound isn’t a life sentence and a bandage isn’t a ticket to victimhood. Letting go of the identity of injury can be empowering and can create the space for taking on the responsibility of stepping fully into one’s essential self.

Take care on the journey by training well in order to diminish the risk of injury and by also preparing well by carrying a first aid kit.

Questions to ask yourself:

  • How do I grieve whilst supporting others through their struggles without comparison?
  • How do I create discernment between compassion and a bleeding heart?
  • How do I bandage the internal wounds that hurt more than anything that bleeds?
  • How do I relate to past wounds, injuries and traumas on an emotional, physical and mental level?

You can follow, support and share my Walking for Mental Health fundraising campaign on BackaBuddy. All my socials can be found on LinkTree.

The 5 Symbols of the Camino de Santiago, Part One: The Backpack

On By Well Worth BeingLeave a comment

As I embark on my most challenging pilgrimage, 1,000km on the Camino de Santiago in Spain, Walking for Mental Health, I am drawn back to reflect once more on the symbols of The Way that I have previously walked with.

The first symbol is the most important for me as it indicates the strategic part of the planning phase as I consider what to pack … adding and then eliminating … ruminating and deliberating … trying to envisage the climate, the landscape, the skin feel and mostly—perhaps obviously—the weight vs the comfort of choice.

If a backpack is too full, the physical body will be strained over capacity and the mind will be less focused on the path ahead as a consequence of the pain. Carrying an extra weight on one’s shoulders has become normalised and it’s common for people—adults, children, corporates, healers—to be brought to their knees by this weight before asking for support. Equally, the journey can be hindered by too light a pack as a result of not paying enough attention to the necessary items one needs to carry on a journey; this could also indicate a—conscious or unconscious—negation of certain personal needs and basic requirements for comfort and health.

We all tend to accumulate too much, often out of fear and death denial; a habit that is hard to break and one that ultimately results in being unwittingly burdened with more than we can carry. It’s important to see what and who lies beneath the layers we have built around ourselves and the burdens we have chosen to carry, and then to create new habits to do with shedding rather than accumulating.

To strip down on an emotional, physical and mental level takes courage because it shows us our authenticity and the corresponding vulnerabilities. By stripping down I don’t mean full renunciation; I refer to discernment around needs according to values and a slow un-layering in line with each person’s capacity and desire for transformation.

Questions to ask yourself:

  • What am I carrying today that may not be mine and/or what is the impact for me?
  • What can I remove from my backpack, and who, if relevant, can I give it to?
  • What’s essential that I might add or that would be worthwhile adding to my backpack for now?

Observations:

  • Awaken your ability to recognise when, how, where and for whom you may be over-burdening yourself. 
  • Build your capacity to feel into how your whole system is responding to the weight you are—intentionally or unintentionally—carrying on a physical, mental and/or emotional level.
  • Look at what doesn’t need to be there as well as what is potentially missing that will benefit the pilgrimage and ease the long walk.

You can follow, support and share my Walking for Mental Health fundraising campaign on BackaBuddy. All my socials can be found on LinkTree.

When asked, ‘Why …?’

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When asked why I chose the Camino de Santiago for this mission and to raise awareness for Mental Health in Suicide Prevention month, the answer was clear:

I have walked so many varied paths all my life, always with this libido driving me towards something there … yet not yet visible. There has been this calling, sometimes subtle and sometimes so intense it has brought me to my knees in prostration and frustration. And yet I have walked and walked and walked through injury, bad climate, distress and, most importantly, a deep knowing that there was something I was walking towards.
Raising awareness for mental health; de-stigmatising conversations around suicide, trauma, grief and loss, and educating people with tools and techniques to recalibrate around adverse life events and debilitating emotional distress are what I was unwittingly walking towards on all my paths.
My paths have been in psychology, investment banking, social development, coaching, meditation, mountain guiding, Vedic scriptures, travel and trekking, writing, creating, consulting, healing and helping.
In short, Walking for Mental Health is my very own Camino de Santiago

With two weeks until departure for Spain to walk 1,000km whilst offering my skills, gifts, wisdom and work freely to fellow pilgrims on their own unique paths to their mental, emotional, physical and spiritual goals, I am reaching out once more for support for my campaign, which is almost 50% funded and which still needs over ZAR 20,000 to make it possible.

If you are unable to make a donation, please consider sharing the campaign with those who resonate with my vision and mission and please note that there are donor incentives for those who would like to experience my work.

To contribute to Walking for Mental Health you can click on my BackaBuddy link:
https://backabuddy.co.za/campaign/walking-for-mental-health
or find all my socials, including how to follow my journey on YouTube, by clicking on my LinkTree:
https://linktr.ee/Walking_for_Mental_Health

Being a donor and supporting me to walk my talk means you become part of the journey of support for whomever I coach along the way. You become part of the solution.